Flashback: One year earlier, after the events of The Enterprise Incident
"Daphne," Spock's voice came from across the science lab.
She turned from her computer station to find him standing tall, hands clasped behind him, facing her with the calm, steady regard that was so familiar.
"Sir?" she asked.
"Knight to d7 six," he said.
A smile pulled momentarily at the corner of her mouth. They had found, to their secret delight and the consternation of everyone else, that since they both possessed a photographic memory, they had no need of an actual physical chessboard in order to play.
"I thought perhaps you had forgotten our game," she said.
"Unlikely," he answered, "but I have been distracted of late."
Spock was well known as the master of understatement. Only he could dismiss a covert operation on the wrong side of the Romulan Neutral zone to …. commandeer a piece of sensitive top secret equipment as a "distraction."
He came to stand beside her and she was instantly, shockingly, aware of him. A betraying flush washed golden over her cheeks. She turned resolutely back to her monitor and he watched her delicate fingertips move over her computer console for a moment before speaking again.
"Something has been distracting you as well," he noted, "Ever since my return."
She met his eyes again and knew he would not be put off with anything but the truth.
"May I speak to you in your office?" she asked.
He nodded and stepped out of the way so she could rise and then follow him into the small room tucked into the corner of the science lab.
It was a utilitarian office. Though he had raised the temperature and severely lowered the humidity there was nothing in here to speak of the owner. He sat in the chair behind the desk, rested his elbows on the arms of the chair and placed the tips of his fingers together. He waited, while she paced a few steps across the room and then back, ordering her thoughts. Scientifically he observed that he had often watched her brother – his commanding officer – pace in exactly the same manner while trying to think, as if the need for action was inexplicably linked to their thought processes. The family resemblance was unmistakable, both in bone structure and intensity, in dangerous intelligence and quick wit, in blazing gold-brown eyes and courage and sheer dogged determination.
She also had the same devastating effect on men that Kirk had on women, though while Kirk took full advantage of it, Daphne seemed blissfully unaware of it.
It was quite fascinating considering Jim and Daphne had only met a few years ago and still barely knew each other.
Finally she paused, took a deep breath and said,
"She wants you dead."
Spock's eyebrows reached heavenward.
"The Romulan Commander," Daphne went on, her voice and eyes fierce. She took another breath and regained a certain amount of control. "The Romulans… the Rihannsu, may be your distant cousins, k'theerazon, but they have less emotional shielding than any earthling. She is less than two decks above me and burning with hate. If I have been distracted since you returned, it has nothing to do with you. It is the presence of a woman who wants you dead, by very slow torture, preferably at her hand."
If it were possible for a Vulcan to look troubled, then Spock did. His eyebrows met in a sharp V between his hooded eyes, wrinkling the normally smooth skin of his forehead. His gaze riveted to a distant point on the far wall.
"I regret that you have had to endure such an emotional assault, k'diwa."
The words were correct. He even used the Vulcan endearment he had given her months ago. But his voice was as distant as his gaze.
"Spock," she said, drawing him back. "She got to you, reached you somehow."
He seemed to mentally shake himself. "Not in the way you might mean," He said, "You have nothing to fear from her. She is no threat to you."
After a few moments of absolute silence, she finally spoke, "I would not stop you if you chose another. But I have lived in your thoughts and no Vulcan lightly calls another 'beloved.' I fear no one when it comes to your heart. But I have been horribly aware of this Romulan Commander ever since she came on board. I fear not that I would lose you to her. There is nothing about her soul that would attract you. Her essence is …dark. Hers is a heart of darkness. You managed to touch her however, and produced an emotional response I do not think you intended. If I fear her it is because she would take you from me, by taking your life. She is furious over you. You have under estimated your power of seduction, my heart."
Spock shook his head, lacing some of his fingers and leaving only the first two paired together. "She was not seduced by me, Daphne. She was seduced by the idea of controlling a Vulcan, and a ranking Star Fleet Officer. If our current intelligence is true at all, Romulans are indoctrinated from birth to believe Vulcans are weak, easily manipulated. They are taught to believe all living Vulcans secretly wish their ancestors had left Vulcan and become Romulan. She is a Fleet Commander, highly place in the Romulan military and it is probably not just the Praetor's favor that put her there. Yet she seemed not to question my apparent desire to abandon the Federation and go with her."
"What is it about her then?" Daphne asked, lost for the first time in uncertainty where Spock was concerned. His thoughts were carefully shielded. "What did she touch in you?"
"Not her," he answered, "Them. The Romulans… Rihannsu. An entire ship filled with beings that look like me physically but were utterly alien to me. The Vulcans we could have been."
She shook her head. "No. I do not agree. They left the temptation to destroy and were forced to become something different in order to forge a life on a new world. They deliberately chose to become a new culture. They Vulcans who remained had no choice but to embrace peace or cease to exist as a race. Whether the Rihannsu are your distant cousins or not, they are aliens now."
He gazed inward again and said, softly, "Perhaps for now."
It took her less than sixty seconds to grasp his meaning.
"You think the Romulans can be made part of the Federation eventually, even reunited with Vulcan."
"It is a hypothesis I am considering," he replied, blandly. Then he sighed slightly, "They seem to still blame Vulcans for driving them from their home world; and the Rihannsu have long memories."
She stared at him for a long time, barely breathing. "Spock," she said, "This is hardly likely to occur even in your lifetime, and it will take a diplomat to rival your father. But right now, one of those you hope to reunite with would like to garrote you with her bare hands." She paused again and was instantly pinned by his unflinching steady stare. His dark eyes were unreadable, black velvet draped over midnight. She felt the impact of that gaze from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.
"There is more," he said. Spock may not ever seek command but he used it effortlessly when he wanted to.
Silently Daphne cursed how well they had come to know each other. She could hide nothing from him. She loosely clasped her hands in front of her and studied them earnestly.
"She alternates between wanting to kill you….. and wanting to kill herself."
Her statement pierced him. He closed his eyes and sat completely still. Daphne watched him with her heart aching. He looked for a moment like a fallen angel; this man – this Vulcan – who made her blood spin in warm eddies.
Spock stood, resolutely and so suddenly she took a step back. "I will go and talk to her."
Her eyes flew open wide, "Are you certain that is wise?"
"No," he admitted. "But it is what I will do anyway."
He started to leave and got as far as the door swishing open before she spoke hastily,
"Spock!"
He turned.
"Pawn to e8 six, taking your knight. Check in two moves," her wide, intelligent, seductive eyes danced, "One of us is more distracted than the other."
Spock knew a flash of desire so hot and sudden he barely controlled it. She was beautiful, exotic, which didn't interest him at all since beautiful exotic women had been throwing themselves at him since his first days at the Academy.
But a woman who could hold her own while playing the black in a mental game of three dimensional chess? Now that was…fascinating.